Threat to TENs cash as deadline looms

Date: 13/06/1996

By Rory Watson

NEGOTIATIONS crucial to the success of the EU's high-profile Trans-European Networks will go down to the wire in Luxembourg next week.

After ten hours of tense talks in Brussels between MEPs and member states ended in deadlock in the early hours of this morning (13 June), the two sides will now make a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement on Monday.

At stake is more than 1.5 billion ecu of EU funding for a series of flagship projects such as the high-speed rail link between London, Paris, Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam and the Brenner tunnel through the Alps.

Negotiators will have just 48 hours to end the stalemate over the European Parliament's demands for tighter environmental assessments and for a detailed list of priority projects when they meet again.

If they fail to agree the guidlines by the 19 June deadline, EU funding of 280 million ecu this year and a further 1.278 billion ecu for future years will remain blocked.

The next round of conciliation negotiations will take place alongside a meeting of EU transport ministers, where one of the major items on the agenda will be the future of the TENs. Observers believe that this may well increase the chances of a compromise being hammered out at the eleventh hour.

Failure to settle the dispute before the deadline would be particularly embarrassing for the Commission, which has set much store by the TENs as part of its drive to create jobs and promote competitiveness in the Union.